Just before Christmas I had had a meeting at the famous office of the Hudson Bay Company in London, and attended another of their interesting luncheons where their directors meet. My old friend Lord Strathcona presided. I could not help noting that after all the lapse of years since we first met at Hudson Bay House in Montreal, he still retained his abstemious habits. He was ninety-three, and still at his post as High Commissioner for a great people, as well as leading councillor of a dozen companies. His memory of Labrador and his days there, and his love for it, had not abated one whit. Hearing that the hospital steamer Strathcona needed a new boiler and considerable repairs, he ordered me to have the work undertaken at once and the bill sent to him. He, moreover, insisted that we should spend some days with him at his beautiful country house near London, an invitation which we accepted for our return, but which we were never fated to realize, for before the appointed date that able man had crossed the last bar. It is said to be better to be lucky than rich. We had expected in Rome to do only what the Romans of our pocket-book do. But we fell in with some old acquaintances whose pleasure it is to give pleasure, and New Year's night was made memorable by a concert given by the choir of the Sistine Chapel, to which we were taken by the editor of the "Churchman" and later of the "Constructive Quarterly," an old friend of ours, Dr. Silas McBee. A glimpse into the British Embassy gave us an insight into the problem of Roman modern politics and the factions of the Black and White. Rome is always delightful. One is glad to forget the future and live for the time in the past. Sitting in the Coliseum in the moonlight I could see the gladiators fighting to amuse the civilized man of that period, and gentle women and innocent men dying horrible deaths for truths that have made us what we are, but which we now sometimes regard so lightly. I confess that religious buildings, religious pictures, religious conventions of all kinds very soon pall on my particular temperament. It is possibly a defect in my development, like my inability to appreciate classical music. On the other hand, like Mark Twain, I enjoy an ancient mummy just because he is ancient; and were it not for the irritation of seeing so much religious display associated with such miserable social conditions in so beautiful a country, I should have more sympathy with those who would "see Rome and die." The sanitation of the one-time Mistress of the world suggests that it could not be difficult to accomplish that feat in the hot weather.